


The Tricky Bit

by Brekah



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Friendship, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-10
Updated: 2015-09-10
Packaged: 2018-04-20 00:09:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4766105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brekah/pseuds/Brekah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She wasn't in love (with the Herald, at least, and a stone to the eye of anyone who asked) but friendship was sort of like being in love, wasn't it, sort of like having someone else take your heart and trod on it just for feeling.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Tricky Bit

**Author's Note:**

> Some light Trespasser spoilers, though nothing outside what was depicted in the trailer.
> 
> I got to wondering what the Inquisitor's friends would be feeling when asked to join the Inquisitor on one last mission. This one was inspired by reading Sera's journal.
> 
> (Also thanks to DancingMantis, who wrote my favorite Sera fic. My Sera voice is defs the child of the game itself (hopefully, maybe, not quite) and Mantis's awesome Sera style.)

It wasn't that he was dying—or it _was_ that, it bloody _was_ that. He was dying and no one seemed to care. Even Sparkly Pants was all excited to move his would be magister arse back to Tevinter, leaving behind the man that he supposedly _loved—_ at least he said that word now, said love, even if he still was all sketchy around the edges about the details. That still meant shit, _shit_ , when the man himself was dying before their bloody eyes. Why couldn't anyone _see_ it?

It was in the way he held his hand—he'd been holding it funny for the last few months, like all the bones were on the mend. He'd gotten shit at his bow work—she'd never outstripped him so easy before, usually had to work for it, never really bothered. Why try to be better than some Herald of Fancy Bits? But the try went away and it just _was._ She'd get the shots he'd missed and he'd laugh— _laugh,_ like it was some sort of funny joke, and no one wanted to ask beyond the laughter because that was where the pain was, Fade green in the palm of his hand.

Maker, it looked bad as shit. Raging where it just used to glow and _bigger_ , definitely bigger than before and she couldn't even make the joke. He'd have laughed but his eyes would have pinched because he knew. Was probably counting down the days until they put him in the ground.

So it was good to go away for a bit herself, even if it made her as bad as Dorian, even if she felt like she was leaving the Herald on his own because _everyone_ was leaving—all but the Bull and the Chargers, and Josephine and Cullen and Harding, so maybe it wasn't _so_ bad. She told herself this even as the Herald gave her his favorite bow upon her leaving, _his best bow_ , with some flip comment about how his aim had gone to shit and all the runes in the world wouldn't fix it.

It was hard to sleep at night, after that. But then good things happened because life moves in a straight line, right, and Widdle and Friends and anything can make someone feel better if there's just a minute for the feeling.

But the mark was even worse when the nobs called their fancy shouting match and everyone came back together, the blaze of it actually hard to look at, the rip of it visible, tearing up and up his arm like something poison. You could ask him if it hurt but it was best not to ask at all—he was done with the jokes, done with the tricky answers. Now he just said yes and it sent the shivers right down your spine because he never said yes to your worry, not when he could smirk at you and call you a mother hen. It was better to have the jokes and make plans for the future—and maybe _that_ was why Dorian was in a huff to sail away again and keep pretending, though if it was Sera and she was in love with a dying sot she'd stick around, stick like stink, and never let anything get between them until that last breath. Not _anything._

But she wasn't in love (with the Herald, at least, and a stone to the eye of anyone who asked _with who, then_ ) but friendship was sort of like being in love, wasn't it, sort of like having someone else take your heart and trod on it just for feeling. Each time he held his hand and screamed—who knew he could _scream_? She'd heard him cry out before but not like _that_ , not like ending. And he wanted to hurry now, hurry all the time. Quick to get in his last two bits, but all she could do was wait for it to happen, wait and be there for the hurting so he knew that someone cared, that he wasn't going to die all alone.

It wasn't fucking fair.

Everyone _wanted_. They _wanted_ their comfy Ferelden arses to sit in comfy Ferelden seats; they _wanted_ their quaint Orlesian wars to squirt out quaint Orlesian rulers. Then they all _wanted_ for him to piss off until the next time. All of this _want_ demanded from one person. And it _fucking killed him._

So maybe that was what it was. All those greedy hats looking for something sweet and the Herald moving from one to the next with his answers because he was a good person and didn't know how to put himself first. The Herald dying alone because _someone had to_. Because killing an ancient magister demon with powers that shouldn't even exist _wasn't enough._ Because hunting down dragons when people needed it and even solving problems in the bloody Deep Roads _wasn't enough._ Because uncovering a Qunari plot and dropping the facts at the feet of the loudest fancy fop nay-sayers _wasn't even close to being enough._

Fuck it. She'd show them all that he'd had friends—that he _still_ had them. He wasn't dead yet. He was coming into the tavern, looking at her and already smiling, some quip on his mind about the idiots he had to navigate just to be breathing. He was broken and you could see it, right in the center of his eyes like a rotten core in an apple, but he still had that daft smile, even though they weren't pretending anymore. She swung her legs and said, “What is it, then?” and the answer wasn't a quip at all.

“It seems I have one last battle in me yet. Care to join me?” And she saw it then, that smile hiding a determined terror and she _knew_ that feeling. That feeling was the end. She looked behind him and there was Cassandra and there was Dorian, Cassandra with red eyes, Maker save them, and Dorian looking like someone had taken his soul and used it as privy paper. And the Herald was looking at her, good hand held out, a plea in his eyes. Wanting something from someone else, for once.

She slapped her hand into his and gripped it to crunching, launching herself from her perch and shoving all the hurting bits down from her chest into her feet and telling them to _stay there_. At least until after, whatever after was.

And the smile that lit up his face when her feet touched the ground—“Thank you, Sera. I could have never done any of this without you.”—that smile went haunting, like it was already fading and gone. “You've been one of the best friends I've ever had. I'm grateful to have you by my side.”

And that was the tricky bit, not giving in to it, not piling herself on the others to start bawling like a snotty brat. The feeling in her chest didn't let her say much, didn't let her get much around the dying daydream of jumping rooftops and slipping drinks, of doing some good without anyone wanting a shitty death pact. She opened her mouth and silently threatened the words that were to come out, told them to be ordered and proper and a shade lighter than dark. The words listened to her for once, even if they were words she'd said before.

“Always and ever, Inquisitor. Always and ever.”


End file.
